A handful of the world's biggest merchants play a high-stakes game every few weeks and a well-connected newcomer from Asia, Wilmar International, just sat down at the table. The stakes are in sugar often worth hundreds of millions of dollars; the occasion is the expiry of futures contracts.

Fears over Mideast turmoil have pushed oil and gas prices sky high, which risks tipping the U.S. economy back in to a recession. But the government isn't powerless when it comes to oil prices: Here are five things that Washington and the states can do that would quickly reduce our pain at the pump.

Sugar prices hit three-decade highs of almost 36 cent a pound Wednesday due to the anticipated effects of the monstrous category 5 cyclone that just hit Australia, the world's third-largest sugar producer, which was already suffering from the effects of recent storms and floods.